Santa Ana Valley Finds Its Offense, Knocks Off Canyon

Santa Ana Valley’s offense finally awoke in the fourth quarter, scoring three times in the final nine minutes as the Falcons defeated Canyon, 21-0, at the Santa Ana Bowl Saturday in the Century League football opener for both teams.

“It’s our turn now,” said Falcon Coach Eddie Steward, whose team improved to 5-1 overall. “We’ve been down the past three years and now we’ve turned the corner.”

With the game scoreless and 9:08 remaining in the fourth, Santa Ana Valley finally broke through when Eliu Fatu scored on a 40-yard pass play from Miguel Guerrero. Hugo Ibarra converted the extra point to make it 7-0.

Canyon, which dropped to 1-5 overall, had a chance to strike back four minutes later with the ball on the Valley 18, but the Falcon defense held.

“Every time it seemed like we might be getting ourselves in trouble our defense stepped up and made the big plays,” Steward said.

With 3:07 left in the game, Santa Ana Valley scored on a 26-yard run by running back Isreal Zepeda, who finished with 191 yards in 21 carries.

“Israel ran great for us tonight,” Steward said. “We went to him a lot and it paid off.”

The Falcons added a final touchdown with 34 seconds to play, when Maurice Dunning caught a 19-yard scoring pass from Guerrero. Ibarra’s kick made the score 21-0.

“I got some complaints from their coach for scoring that final touchdown when we were up, 14-0, but we are here to win,” Steward said. “Every time we have the ball we’re going to put forth our best effort.”

Santa Ana Valley had two scoring opportunities in the first half but Ibarra missed field goals of 32 and 35 yards.

“Our offense took a while to get going, so our defense had to really save us tonight,” Steward said.